Community Brag Posts

Lots of projects going on around here, but today I’m sharing my farmhouse dining table I built a little over a year ago (waaay before this blog!).  This was my very first woodworking project.  I did happen to snap a few photos of the process – sorry about the poor quality, these were taken with my phone!

The wood for building this table was around $100!  I think Pottery Barn was selling this table for around $1800 at the time.  Mine might not look identical, but for the cost differential, I’m a happy camper!

For the stain I really wanted to create a natural-looking aged finish so I used the old steel wool and vinegar treatment.

My son loves his new bed. It was his favorite part of Christmas. He now has his own little sanctuary to hide out in.

After completing this console table from Ana Whites' The Hand Built Home, I'm sold on doing more projects from this book! My wife has gone ahead and put sticky notes throughout the book on stuff she wants built! So pretty much I have all the projects in the book to complete. I also had guys at the fire department I work for make comments on how much they liked it. Keep the plans coming Ana!!

I wanted a good solid desk for my office and I thought these plans were perfect. The wood, screws, paint, and stain all cost less than $30. Instead of using 2x4's for the top I used a solid piece of aspen. I then stained the top and painted the bottom white.

I was inspired to build this bed by this post at Big Box Detox. http://www.bigboxdetox.com/diy-make-own-upholstered-bed

I chose not to build the headboard because I have my bed placed in front of a window. However, I may add it in the future. For those of you going on a search for fabric and batting I recommend scoping out Joann's Fabric and Crafts, especially when they offer 50% coupons. The cost for me for wood, batting and fabric was less than $150! My project can also be found on my blog at designroost.net

Happy building!

A fun project to make ending with a functional product to boot!  I went all out making sure that each truck/shelf would coordinate with each grandson's theme/decor in their bedrooms.  Luca, who just turned 2, got a new Chevy Corvette Racce Car Bed for his birthday and I built the gas pump book case/cabinet to match.  Therefore, for Luca I went with the Red and white to match his bed & bookcase/cabinet and added painted on logos and lettering for his vintage Chevy truck.

Built two Rustic X end tables and one Rustic X coffee table. I modified the design to fit my room better. Just building the two tables (no sanding) took me about 5 hours.

Second Ana White project.  Modified it from the "X" to a "Z" coffee table.  Hand distressed it.  Narrowed the width, bread board ends, and added clavos and trunk corners I purchased on Amazon.  Very happy with this second build.  It went much easier than my first one.   

I've made another record cabinet, this time with a nice dark walnut stain.  To see more details and plans visit my blog.

http://www.woodworkingfourdummies.com/

Cheers,

Ian

I used the jewelry cabinet as inspiration by adding crown moulding to the top and b-board to the door and changing the measurements.

I am really new at this woodbuilding thing, but found this and gave it a try.

Turned out quite good in an afternoon.

I did not use a Kreg Jig as I live in belgium (Europe), but Wolfcraft has a similar kind of tool, with the advantage of showing the mesurements in cm instead of inches.

Structure : used 69x44cm

Surface : used 150x35cm

Pain : V33 cacao for structure and ivory for surface.

My wife and I traveled to Boston for Thanksgiving with our daughter.  While we were there ,we were browsing around Restoration Hardware and stumbled on a loft bed.  My daughter fell in love with it, but I was hesitant of the 3300 price tag, thinking how fast she is growing.   I decided to do some research and thanks to your site , I have one happy child. It took me about a week and half start to finish and cost me 600 dollars in all materials , a few miscellaneous tools, and a new mattress .  It was fun to build , plans were accurate , and the completed project is flawless.   Thank you for your help!!!   Bianco Family

I slightly modified this one from the original plans by rounding off the cutout in the legs.

This was my first DIY build. Having been inspired by my good friend, the brilliant Jen Woodhouse of The House of Wood, I decided surely I could do this too. So I picked something that looked like a challenge, but that we also needed. We have an old piano we bought from Craigslist that has heretofore been benchless. So I used the Flip Top Storage Bench plans, headed to Home Depot, collected the wood (and let them cut it - but made a few of my own cuts, too), and got to work.

I had a little trouble at first, simply because, after assembling the sides and aprons, the unit did NOT square up. I took a few pieces apart and realized it wasn't user error (what?), but warped wood. That's right: one of my 1x3s was warped and bendy. So I rebuilt that side with some of my leftovers, and made sure to square up after each step, and lo and behold it came together!

It's not perfect - one of my legs is a bit off, so it wobbles when no one's sitting on it, but there's no issue when it bears weight - but for my first build, I'm quite pleased! And now that I know I can do this...well, this is just the beginning!

Total time it took me was probably around 15 hours, which includes practicing using my circular saw and kreg jig (both of which were straight out of the box when I started), along with my rebuilding the side.

I used Minwax pre-stain wood conditioner after sanding, followed by two coats of Rustoleum spray stain in Kona. I sanded with 400 grit sand paper after each coat of stain, and finished with one coat of semi-gloss polyurethane. I considered a few more coats of stain, but so fell in love with the weathered look that evolved from the staining and sanding that I just left it!

I also spray painted the hinges - that was a bit of an accident (I didn't know how NOT to cover them in stain...), but turned out to my liking!

My estimated cost is about $100, which covers the wood (including the extra 1x3s and an extra 1x2 I needed for a screw-up), nails, screws, three cans of spray stain, polyurethane, wood conditioner, paint brushes, two packs of sandpaper, and my hand sander. All but the wood will be used in my next few projects too, so that cost covers QUITE a bit!